


Harry Potter and the Waffle Hut

by SCP682_HardtoDestroyReptile



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:02:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SCP682_HardtoDestroyReptile/pseuds/SCP682_HardtoDestroyReptile
Summary: Poor Harry.  He's stuck in a dead end job.  When he decides to quit, of course he does so dramatically.  This is gonna look really bad on his resume.  Post HBP. I don't own Harry Potter, nor will I make any money off this story.
Relationships: None
Kudos: 4





	Harry Potter and the Waffle Hut

Harry Potter and the Waffle Hut

Harry hated his job. The work itself wouldn’t have been so bad, except that he had been trained in the best magical school in England, had an overwhelming amount of natural talent, and was reduced to serving long-haul truckers at a greasy spoon. The worst insult to his small remnant of dignity was when someone would look at him and say, “Did you know you look an awful lot like Harry Potter?” His uniform hat covered the scar, so he would smile and nod, and he would curse them in his mind.

His struggle with Voldemort was only the last of a long and cruel childhood. The world was much less welcoming to the traumatized orphan than Hogwarts had been, and he found it impossible to keep a job. His older friends had tried to talk him into therapy, but words like “mental illness” and “PTSD” were frightening to him. His idiot Aunt’s family had called him insane when he was younger, and every time it was just before some punishment.

His younger friends tried to help them, and he knew that they meant well, but as Ron and Hermione married they slowly drifted away from him. Luna and Neville went to Mexico to study Chupacabras, and the rest of Dumbledore’s Army scattered to the four winds, leaving him alone and sour.

He drifted from job to job, staying until his problems caused too many absentee issues or his mental health made him so unreliable he was fired. It was almost always the same story. A sad boss handing him a paper and saying something along the lines of, “sorry Harry. You’re a great worker, but it’s just not working out.” Always that great worker part, for all the good it did him. And there were the other times he left, because of things he did that people overreacted to. It wasn’t his fault his past crept up on him and he did a few bad things, but the bosses never saw it that way.

Today was one of the worst days he had dealt with in a long time. There were two customers he dreaded and despised in a corner booth. They knew who he was, and they liked to subtly taunt him for it. He wondered if they had been Death Eaters.

He didn’t know their names. The wait staff just called them the Grannies – Blue and Pink Granny, because of their clothes - and all of them avoided the acidic old witches as much as possible.

Harry knew what muggles thought old, vicious witches looked like, but these were no warty nosed, sharp faced women. Harry’s actual experience with warty nosed, sharp faced old women had been very positive. These two looked about 25, at least in face and body. They were shapely twins, with soft, heart shaped faces, and large impossible blue eyes.

But those eyes were cold, and the only thing that brought a flash of life to them was when they could torture an employee. They loved to mess with people who couldn’t retaliate.

“Hey Algiers,” Harry said to the other waiter. “I’ll flip you a galleon for who has to serve them.” Harry lost.

He put on his best working smile and approached them. They were holding their menus up, and he saw their bony hands gripping them tightly. The spell didn’t work on hands, apparently, and they were the translucent skinned, liver spot marked hands of ancient women. The skin was stretched so tightly over the skeletal hands he could see every knuckle as if they were about to burst through.

When they lowered the menu he was struck by the contrast between the almost ethereal beauty of their faces and the honest ugliness of their hands.

“Good evening ladies, and how can I help you tonight?”

Blue grimaced and wiped her finger along the windowsill. A thin line of dust came alone with it. “First you could tell us why no one does their job around here.”

Harry resisted the urge to sigh. “I’m sorry ma’am. Can I get you something to drink?”

Pink said, “you know, the only reason you people have any business at all is because there isn’t anywhere else around here open at 3a.m.”

Harry felt insulted. He did the best he could at his job, although he constantly had to deal with drunken wizards and belligerent witches. Night shift was the worst.

“And why is it so cold in here?” Blue asked. “It’s too cold to eat. Go fit it.”

Harry noticed that a few other tables had come in. He was wasting all his time on these two old bitches who never tipped. “I’ll ask the cook to turn down the air.”

“You’ll _tell_ him to turn it down, now,” Blue snapped. Harry was getting a headache. Before he could talk to the cook, Pink called him back impatiently.

“Never mind all that,” Blue said. “Just take our order. You are an incompetent young man, aren’t you?”

“What can I get for you?” Harry asked. It was quicker to let her vent than to deal with arguing with her.

“I want two eggs well done, hash browns well done, and sausage well done. And I want water in a _clean_ glass.”

“Just tea and toast,” Pink said. “Surely you can’t get that wrong.”

He gave the order to the grill cook and rushed to serve other tables as the old womens’ meal cooked. When he took them the food, Blue poked at the sausage with her fork. “Take it back.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The eggs are overdone. I specifically asked for over medium eggs.”

“Yes ma’am.” Harry was feeling angrier by the minute. He tried to find his happy place. He tried counting to 10. He even tried to imagine himself strangling Umbridge. That last part helped a bit, but not much.

When the new, over medium eggs were cooked, he plastered the smile back on his face and brought it to the old bats. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“You can get me your manager’s number. You should be sacked. Honestly, if you can’t do better than this, you shouldn’t be in this business. I waited tables for 40 years, and let me tell you…”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Harry muttered. He pulled out his wand. “Avada Kedavra.”

She fell over dead and there was a welcome silence as her sister stared in shock. He walked out of the restaurant, tossing his apron and hat on a table as he left.

“I quit,” he said to a shocked cook. As he left he flipped the entire store the bird.

“I lose more jobs that way,” he mumbled.


End file.
